Poll: All eyes on the North-East

Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh | credits:
http://www.mydailynewswatchng.com
The much-awaited presidential election holds today amid
threat by the leader of the violent Boko Haram sect, Abubakar
Shekau, to disrupt the poll in the troubled North-East, FISAYO
FALODI writes
Today’s presidential election has been described by some
observers as a major exercise that will determine the
continued existence of Nigeria as a country.
The observers believe that the torrent of the challenges,
especially the insecurity confronting the country’s North-
eastern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe is a potential
threat to Nigeria’s survival after the presidential election.
A former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter
Carrington, stressed this point not long ago when he said that
if Nigeria could conduct free and fair elections, tackle
corruption and bring the ongoing war against insurgency to an
end, the country would realise its potential.
Over 13,000 Nigerians were said to have been killed and over
one million people displaced from their homes since the Boko
Haram sect began its violent attacks on the country six years
ago.
As eligible voters, however, file out today to participate in the
process that will lead to the emergence of a new president,
the observers have raised concern over the fate of the
residents of the violent-hit North-Eastern states of Borno,
Adamawa and Yobe.
Though it was said that the military has recorded appreciable
success in the fight to contain the activities of the Boko
Haram sect with the recovery of no fewer than 36 towns
hitherto taken over by the terror group from it, observers said
the recent threat by the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau, to
disrupt today’s poll because “it is un-Islamic” should not be
taken with kid gloves.
Shekau, who in a video released recently, had said, “This
election will not be held even if we are dead. Even if we are
not alive, Allah will never allow you to do it.
“Allah will not leave you to proceed with these elections even
after us, because you are saying that authority is from people
to people, which means that people should rule each other,
but Allah says that the authority is only to him, only his rule
is the one which applies on this land.
“And finally we say that these elections that you are planning
to do, will not happen in peace, even if that costs us our
lives.”
But the observers said the recovery of the towns might have
weakened the activities of the terror group, the military should
ensure that the insurgents were prevented from carrying out
their threat in order to ensure that the electorate cast their
votes without fear or favour.
A former Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abubakar Tsav, in an
interview with Saturday PUNCH tasked the security personnel
mobilised to the North-East to make two issues their focal
points – ensure the safety of voters and the electoral officers
and protect other residents from being attacked by insurgents.
Tsav said, “If elections could be successfully conducted in
countries that had one time or the other been hit by violence,
the people of the three states under the Boko Haram siege
should be protected to freely participate in the election as
soldiers have told Nigerians that they had liberated the
troubled region from terrorists.”
He also asked the security agents to frustrate Shekau’s threat
to disrupt the poll.
A former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Alani Akinrinade, saw the
conduct of the poll as an exercise that must not be allowed to
be disrupted by any terror leader or group.
He said though the terror leader had served notice to disrupt
the poll, the nation’s Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces
must equally rise up to prove to him that the collective
interest of Nigeria is superior to the parochial interest of an
individual.
Akinrinade said, “Shekau might have served a notice to cause
trouble on the election day, the Commander in Chief of the
Armed Forces should serve him a notice that democracy is
superior to the violence the terror leader is promoting.
“The Commander in Chief should let him realise that we intend
to have the election on Saturday (today) and that he should
do everything humanly possible to ensure that the threat is
frustrated.”
The insecurity caused by the Boko Haram sect in the North-
eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa was cited as the
major reason behind the postponement of the general
elections from February 14 and February 28 to today and April
11.
The presidential election is majorly between the Peoples
Democratic Party candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, and that
of the All Progressives Congress, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
(retd), though there are other less popular presidential
candidates.
However, the urge to conduct the election in the troubled
region by the Independent National Electoral Commission was
believed to have been spurred by the headway the military is
making in the battle against insurgency.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, stressed this belief when
he said recently at a forum organised in Abuja by the African
Policy Research Institute that the commission was working
hard to limit the number of Nigerians that might be
disenfranchised as a result of the insurgency.
The INEC boss buttressed his point by saying that the
electoral body had received adequate assurance that security
would be provided for the March 28 and April 11 elections in
every part of the country.
“We are getting over 700,000 ad-hoc staff and we cannot put
the lives of 700,000 people at risk. We have received full
assurances that security will be provided for the elections,” he
said.
The assurance of the security agencies gave the Internally
Displaced Persons in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states the
opportunity to participate in the poll through the special
polling centres created for them.
According to Jega, arrangements have been made in the three
states to ensure that the IDPs vote.
He had said, “When the methodology for the IDPs was
designed, it showed that there were fewer people in camps
and more outside and so it was recommended that voting
centres for IDPs should be outside the camps, while in Borno
State, it was recommended that the voting centre should be
inside the camps.
“This makes it easier for us because my team has made an
assessment to know those that have collected their PVCs. The
polling unit will be set up in accordance to the local
government that corresponds with the number of people in the
camps.”
To achieve the objective, INEC raised a task force chaired by
the National Commissioner, Mrs. Thelma Iremiren, to get the
IDPs exercise their civic responsibility. Members of the task
force include Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states Resident
Electoral Commissioners.
Specifically, the terms of reference of the task force are to
examine the legal, political, security and administrative
challenges in achieving IDP voting during the general election;
evaluate the standards and recommendations emerging from
conferences and workshops by international and local
agencies on IDP voting, and determine their applicability to
Nigeria for the polls.
Others are reviewing the experiences of other jurisdictions in
dealing with the challenges of IDP voting; evaluating the
adequacy of existing electoral legal framework for resolving
the challenges of IDP voting; determining what the
commission can do to ensure that IDPs are not
disenfranchised, if the existing legal framework is inadequate
and determining the scope of IDP participation that is
practicable in the general election.
But residents of Madagali and Michika towns in Adamawa
State are not likely to vote in today’s election despite the
efforts made by relevant stakeholders to ensure that all
eligible voters participate in the exercise.
INEC said it would not deploy its staff to conduct elections in
the two towns because it had yet to get clearance from
security operatives. But INEC’s position differs from claims by
some groups identified as Michika elders that Madagali and
Michika are safe for elections.
An expert in security management, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, believes
that no matter the number of measures put in place, the
terrorists might still carry out their threat because they are
ready to die.
“The fact of the matter is that terrorists are going to strike on
the election day no matter what anybody does to prevent the
attack. The terrorists are going to attack voting venues with
the use of improvised explosive devices, especially where
there is large number of voters,” he said.
According to him, the relative success being recorded by the
military in the anti-terror war is not enough to guarantee that
election should hold in the troubled parts of the country.
Ekhomu said, “The terrorists have become a full grown threat
to the nation’s security; they are not going to do anything
less than carrying out Shekau’s threat to disrupt the election.
“It is rather fool hardy for INEC to contemplate having election
in the troubled states; it demonstrates some measure of
insensitivity on the part of the electoral body that it must hold
election in those states when all is not going to be well with
them in terms of security.”
He also flayed the idea of creating special polling units for the
IDPs. Ekhomu compared a situation in which the IDPs were
asked to vote at the special polling centres with asking a
resident of Edo State to leave his ward without fault of his
own to travel many kilometres to Lekki area of Lagos State to
exercise his civic responsibility.
“It is electoral fraud on the part of INEC to ask the IDPs to
vote outside their wards or local government areas. Special
polling centre does not exist in the Electoral Law,” he said.
In spite of his opposition to the conduct of the election in the
troubled states, Ekhomu wants the security personnel
deployed in preventing breakdown of law and order to be more
vigilant.
He also expressed fear that states such as Bauchi, Gombe
and Kano that have had fair share of the Boko Haram attacks
in the past are not immune from any possible strike by the
terror group.